As a singer/songwriter, Eric Stuart has toured the United States with such rock legends as Peter Frampton, Ringo Starr, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He's also opened for such acts as Jethro Tull, Julian Cope, Hall & Oates, Chicago, The English Beat, Dave Mason, Steve Howe, John Entwistle, Dave Davies, The Alarm. All this while continuing a successful voice acting/directing career spanning over 25 years, starring in hit shows including Pokémon (original Brock, James, Butch, Squirtle, Blastoise, Pokédex), Yu-Gi-Oh! (Seto Kaiba), etc.

Julie LD. : You’re a voice actor, and a musician. So, did you start music or voice acting first ?

Eric Stuart : I was a musician first, in 5th grade, at school, and I played guitar, a little bit of guitar. And then I became a voice actor, probably in middle 18-19 years old. So I have been a musician before, probably ten years longer.

J. LD. : What made you want to be a voice actor ?

E. S. : I never wanted to be a voice actor. Really. I was working as a musician, and someone I knew owned a recording studio. And they wanted an assistant, to help them work at the studio. And I thought “this is great”, they made music. Because that was exactly what I wanted to do. And that’s not what they did at all. They produced video and TV commercials, only the voices. So I learned from behind the scene. And slowly I got in front of the mic’ and voiced over myself. It took a while and I stumbled into it. That wasn’t something I have planned.

J. LD. : And were you already interested in manga, anime, etc ?

E. S. : I liked one anime when I was very young, called “Battle of the planets”. It was a japanese gatchaman. The characters would say “TRANSMUTE” and then changed from kids to birds. The Phoenix was their plane. And it was a very cool show. And the actor who played the main character was Casey Kasem, who played Shaggy on Scooby-Doo. So I can sound like Casey Kasem, (talks with Shaggy voice) so I can do that voice. And he played the main character and as a young boy I imitated him. So when I started to do anime myself, Brock from Pokemon, is basically that voice.

J. LD. : You have an impressive list of characters and media (commercial), does it mean something about you ?

E. S. : When I choose diff voices for character, make it so unlike a stage or film actor, which are filmed so you them, so you know its them, but when I do voice acting, I wanted to be the character that you know, so if I use the sam voice all the time, you would say “oh it’s Eric Stuart”, I want you to say oh its Sito Kaita, oh its Brock, Oh its James, and then whn you find out later that Im doing all of the voices you can say oh wow , but otherwise you break down the wall and youre hearing to the actor and not the character. With jap shows when were doing the adaptation in eng we listen to the jap voices and even though I don’t speak jap youre hearing the register, the tone, and then try to imitate that in the language youre speaking, eng, French.

J. LD. : That’s not easy, when you hear Japanese voices, they put a lot of emotions, a lot of screaming.

E. S. : Yes, a lot of screaming!

J. LD. : How do you manage to make each and every one of them unique

E. S. : That’s what I do, I listen to the original and adapt from it. And sometimes we go against the original. For instance, Humour is very reachable, what's funny in one country or city might not be funny in another. I use the exemple of the biggest fatest character: in japanese, he might have a deep voice, in America, he might have a high voice and be called "Tiny". Cause that’s funny in America, you know. So sometimes we make changes based on what country were working for. Otherwise I like to work on different dialects and accents and registers, just so that, as I said, you don’t always know it's Eric Stuart.

J. LD. : So you're adapting the show to the country?

E. S. : Yes.

J. LD. : What’s the difference between voice acting in anime, video games, movies and advertising?

E. S. : So, Video games. I’m a gamer I play a lot. So, you say the line and it has to be a certain length, and it's triggered in the game. So, even if you say “Help”, it has to be ten different ways, the same for “AARHHH”. So, that it's not the same one over and over, which is annoying. In anime, when we’re doing the adaptation we have to match the "lipflap" (lipflap: mouth's movement). So, we talked like this or like that (imitates the speed of lips). In some show, for example I worked with one called Viva Pinata, the technic is called "Prelay", where we record the voices first, put them together and then send them to animate. So, we can act more freely, not lock into lipflap. The other thing is if I were an on-camera actor, I could use gesture, I could make facial expressions. But what I make for a livings it’s all here (shows his throat). So, you really have to find a way to put all the emotions in your voice without support.

J. LD. : How do you manage to get into your character’s mind?

E. S. : I try to simplify, to make it so it’s “A, B, C”, so that I’m not confused by game play or the details of everything that’s going on a show because it gets very complicated. Every emotion is something we can relate to. I played a lot of sport in School, so if I’m doing the voice of Kaïba and we’re dueling in Yu-Gi-Oh, it’s competition, so I simplify. Like “ok, it’s one and one”, it’s like playing tennis, rather then what’s going on behind the scene, am I happy, am I sad, angry, etc. And I use the emotions that I know from my own experiences, in those situations I rarely read the script ahead of time, I might get a little bit of back stories so that I understand somewhat. But mostly, I try to simplify, because I think that's where the honesty, the credibility comes in. I try to tap into things that are real to me, so that the person watching feels like "wow, he’s really sad or happy” and you believe me.

J. LD. : Now a cute question : do you feel close to your characters ?

E. S. : Yes, very close. In my studio I have a toy of Brock, James and a very tiny one of Kaiba, (cause his ego is so big,) so yes, I feel very connected to them, all three of them. When you work on those two shows that are internationally known, even though there’s other voice actors that worked on those shows around the world, the English version is the most spred. So to be connected to them is very humbling. I liked girls in HighSchool so obviously Brock make sense to me. James, I don’t know if I could make sense of this. I went to a private school, which was a hippy, loose, happy kind, but we played football against another school who was a very uptight one. So I use to make fun of those schools, and James is like that, very upscale, steady.

J. LD. : So you can be close to a character which is kind of you’re opposite?

E. S. : Yes, well he’s not really my opposite, you know he is a sweet, funny villain, and to me, funny villains are so much fun to play. Because their comedy is great.

J. LD. : So is there more freedom with that kind of character ?

E. S. : It’s easier and funnier than to play the hero, it’s very one dimensional, you have to be good. My favorite super-hero is Batman because he is close to the villain line, he is conflicted, he’s got depth, otherwise superman is too straight-ahead. When you only have this little line to be the heroes, you have to really dig to try to make that character interesting. Where is it corky and funny and unpredictable, like the Joker. You could do anything.

J. LD. : Heath Ledger did that quite well. Do you sometimes speak with your character`s voice, without thinking about it ?

E. S. : No, I don’t do it just by chance but I sometime like to use my character’s voice in public to confuse people. A long time ago I did this ; I had moved from NY to Nashville, Tennessee, I was called for jury duty. But I didn’t live in NY anymore, so I kept calling them saying “I don’t live here anymore, I just visit my parents sometimes” but they wouldn’t hear it so I had to go in person. So I dressed with a baseball cab and a tshirt and told them, with a southern accent “I live in Tennessee!”. They just looked at me and said “No problem!” (he signs a fake paper).

J. LD. : That’s Useful!

E. S. : Yes, but the secret is : you have to keep the character because you don’t want it to seem like you’re pulling or making a fool out of them. No, I’m usually conscious of what voice I use and I make my choice.

J.LD. : So you’re not speaking with James’ voice in your everyday life by accident?

E. S. : No, I might get Sarcastic like Kaiba but no!